While we’re on the topic of Henry’s birthday, we might as well chat about his actually birthday parties! 

Yes, the phase “birthday parties” is intentionally pluralized. We purposefully planned two different celebrations to honor Henry’s birthday. 

Now that we’ve lived in Austin for a year, we have a lot more connections. I didn’t want to throw a single party and overwhelm Henry with a ton of people all at once. However, I also wanted to invite everyone. The solution was to throw a party on Saturday morning for a couple of his closest friends and to throw a separate party on Sunday afternoon for the adults in our lives whom

I haven’t had a chance to revisit Henry’s birthday traditions until now! 

We hung up his birthday bunting, as well as a ribbon with one photo from each year of his life (held up by mini-clothespins). At first I was going to take his picture in the same chair every year, but I realized it would be more fun to look at various kinds of pictures from each year. 

We also did his candle ceremony. 

We started the ritual last year when I stumbled upon this 9-candle holder on Etsy.
I realized it was the perfect complement to the ceremony: one tealight
candle for every year until